So I don't post nearly as much as I used to but with what was definitely been a hotly debated loss, I have been thinking about posting something for the past few days. I've swayed back and forth on both sides of the argument and just want to hash everything out - call it therapeutic for me if you will. Anyways, here we go.
First and foremost, the Butler fiasco. I am going to completely toss out the notion that BB threw this game or benched Butler out of spite. This is a guy who all the haters accused of cheating to fuel his addiction to winning. Now I am supposed to believe that he did this as part of a power struggle to punish Kraft and Brady? I don't claim to know BB at all, but I would say that he would be more inclined to quit on the spot than to intentionally throw a game.
Next, many have insinuated that this was a replica of the KC gameplan, or that we had never played Chung in the slot before. Fact is, our safeties played more than our corners this year. Very often, Chung was in the slot and not always matched up against the TE. You can argue against the matchup all you want and you can (and probably should crap all over the strategy). But this is not something that they came up with out of the blue. And, in theory, the strategy makes sense - essentially we are substituting out our #3 corner for our best in the box safety (Chung). We did not believe we could win "big on big" in between the hash marks.
So what happened? There is so much misinformation that I don't know what to believe. Butler was drunk, he was high, he was late, he wasn't there at all, he fought, he didn't fight, he cared too much, he didn't care at all. I'm not sure we will ever truly know. All I know for sure, is that something happened that caused BB to believe that Butler could not help the team. Whether it was him messing up the adjustments all week in practice or simply a change of heart based on watching game film, it was truly a bizarre turn of events that led from him starting to him being a role player to him in 2 weeks time. Should BB have adjusted and threw Butler in there to give the team a spark? It definitely could not have hurt. I'll reserve judgement on that until the details come out (if ever). But I don't buy for a second that the team was shocked to the point of not being able to perform that Butler was not playing (after all, reports were that Rowe was starting in practice all week).
Richards and Bademosi combined played twenty something snaps, most of which came when Chung was injured. Richards was obviously a fish out of water in coverage, but I honestly don't think Bademosi was that bad - aside from that godawful missed tackle. Oddly enough, he usually a very sound and solid tackler in the open field (perhaps even better than Butler?) so I think that was more lack of execution than anything.
I have also heard that they should have put Butler on Agholor. The problem with that would have been the Eagles would have tore us up on the ground. So maybe Foles would not have been MVP...it would have gone to Blount or Ajayi instead.
I think the whole issue with this gameplan was that BB wanted to make sure he stopped the run. He identified it as the Eagles bread and butter (rightfully so, imo). This is what led him to the big nickel look. He could live with Foles gashing us up. What he could not live with was chunk play after chunk play in the run game. The problem, and by big beef, was that even with all this scheming we could not stop the run consistently. Forget the few big runs, those are bound to happen. However, even when we stopped them they were still churning out 3-4 yards a carry. The Eagles were never behind the chains and with 2nd/3rd and manageable all game long (I think there were only 2 or 3 3rd and longs all game), we never put Foles in a position where he had to throw. For one of the few times in his career, BB had no answers. We tried zone and man, blizting and playing coverage. Literally nothing worked.
The problem with the matchup was the strength of the Eagles (OL, interior receivers) matched up very well with our weaknesses. Throw in a scheme that stresses the defense horizontally, and our lack of speed at LB was certainly exposed. I actually thought our interior DL was okay. But we failed to set the edge all game which led to numerous bigger gains. I guess that's what happens when you have a combination of injuries all in the same area of the field (Hightower, McClellin, Valentine, Rivers) combined with a few busts (Ealy) and underperformers (Branch). I think with a full slate of DL/LB, we probably move Guy to end to help set the edge and funnel to Hightower and Van Noy. Obviously, that would only happen in Madden...
A little more about the RPO. I played a bit in university, so I understand the concept at a very basic level. The idea is very similar to the read option in that you leave a backside player unblocked (usually the backside LB) and if he overcommits to the stretch blocking to the playside, the QB pulls the ball and throws off his back hip. There are two ways to consistently beat the RPO: penetration and speed from that backside player - 2 key weaknesses in our LB group.
Evaluating Brady in this game is so weird. The guy threw for 500 yards yet somehow I feel like he left points on the table, got too greedy at certain points in the game, and missed a few throws. There were some huge coverage breakdowns by the Eagles that left receivers wide open. Wow are we spoiled. All that to say, despite what I would oddly call his A- game, there is no doubt the D let him down. However, I still believe the offense let the defense down in the previous 2 superbowl losses so I guess we have come full circle. Just weird...
Maybe I am being overly forgiving of the defense. Or maybe I'm just realistically assessing that the D got exposed by an offense that got hot at the right time against a starting caliber QB that had the perfect blend of experience without enough film to really break down his weaknesses. Maybe I would be less forgiving if that same offense did not do the exact same thing to the absolute best D in the league two weeks earlier (and also to the Falcons in sub-zero temps where the only things holding them was inefficiency in the redzone and a few too many fumbles).
As for the BB vs Brady debate, this always creeps up after every non-winning season. The truth is, both are all time greats on their own but neither would be anywhere near as successful if they were apart. Brady has been blessed to spend his whole career in a system (don't forget this is Belichick's offense too) that caters to his strengths and an atmosphere that pushes him to continually get better. BB has benefitted from an unheard of level of stability of top performance at QB.
Anyways, that's it for now. Thanks for letting me vent. I don't know if we will make it back to the SB (it is never easy), but we will certainly be right back in the thick of things next year and I would definitely not bet against it.
First and foremost, the Butler fiasco. I am going to completely toss out the notion that BB threw this game or benched Butler out of spite. This is a guy who all the haters accused of cheating to fuel his addiction to winning. Now I am supposed to believe that he did this as part of a power struggle to punish Kraft and Brady? I don't claim to know BB at all, but I would say that he would be more inclined to quit on the spot than to intentionally throw a game.
Next, many have insinuated that this was a replica of the KC gameplan, or that we had never played Chung in the slot before. Fact is, our safeties played more than our corners this year. Very often, Chung was in the slot and not always matched up against the TE. You can argue against the matchup all you want and you can (and probably should crap all over the strategy). But this is not something that they came up with out of the blue. And, in theory, the strategy makes sense - essentially we are substituting out our #3 corner for our best in the box safety (Chung). We did not believe we could win "big on big" in between the hash marks.
So what happened? There is so much misinformation that I don't know what to believe. Butler was drunk, he was high, he was late, he wasn't there at all, he fought, he didn't fight, he cared too much, he didn't care at all. I'm not sure we will ever truly know. All I know for sure, is that something happened that caused BB to believe that Butler could not help the team. Whether it was him messing up the adjustments all week in practice or simply a change of heart based on watching game film, it was truly a bizarre turn of events that led from him starting to him being a role player to him in 2 weeks time. Should BB have adjusted and threw Butler in there to give the team a spark? It definitely could not have hurt. I'll reserve judgement on that until the details come out (if ever). But I don't buy for a second that the team was shocked to the point of not being able to perform that Butler was not playing (after all, reports were that Rowe was starting in practice all week).
Richards and Bademosi combined played twenty something snaps, most of which came when Chung was injured. Richards was obviously a fish out of water in coverage, but I honestly don't think Bademosi was that bad - aside from that godawful missed tackle. Oddly enough, he usually a very sound and solid tackler in the open field (perhaps even better than Butler?) so I think that was more lack of execution than anything.
I have also heard that they should have put Butler on Agholor. The problem with that would have been the Eagles would have tore us up on the ground. So maybe Foles would not have been MVP...it would have gone to Blount or Ajayi instead.
I think the whole issue with this gameplan was that BB wanted to make sure he stopped the run. He identified it as the Eagles bread and butter (rightfully so, imo). This is what led him to the big nickel look. He could live with Foles gashing us up. What he could not live with was chunk play after chunk play in the run game. The problem, and by big beef, was that even with all this scheming we could not stop the run consistently. Forget the few big runs, those are bound to happen. However, even when we stopped them they were still churning out 3-4 yards a carry. The Eagles were never behind the chains and with 2nd/3rd and manageable all game long (I think there were only 2 or 3 3rd and longs all game), we never put Foles in a position where he had to throw. For one of the few times in his career, BB had no answers. We tried zone and man, blizting and playing coverage. Literally nothing worked.
The problem with the matchup was the strength of the Eagles (OL, interior receivers) matched up very well with our weaknesses. Throw in a scheme that stresses the defense horizontally, and our lack of speed at LB was certainly exposed. I actually thought our interior DL was okay. But we failed to set the edge all game which led to numerous bigger gains. I guess that's what happens when you have a combination of injuries all in the same area of the field (Hightower, McClellin, Valentine, Rivers) combined with a few busts (Ealy) and underperformers (Branch). I think with a full slate of DL/LB, we probably move Guy to end to help set the edge and funnel to Hightower and Van Noy. Obviously, that would only happen in Madden...
A little more about the RPO. I played a bit in university, so I understand the concept at a very basic level. The idea is very similar to the read option in that you leave a backside player unblocked (usually the backside LB) and if he overcommits to the stretch blocking to the playside, the QB pulls the ball and throws off his back hip. There are two ways to consistently beat the RPO: penetration and speed from that backside player - 2 key weaknesses in our LB group.
Evaluating Brady in this game is so weird. The guy threw for 500 yards yet somehow I feel like he left points on the table, got too greedy at certain points in the game, and missed a few throws. There were some huge coverage breakdowns by the Eagles that left receivers wide open. Wow are we spoiled. All that to say, despite what I would oddly call his A- game, there is no doubt the D let him down. However, I still believe the offense let the defense down in the previous 2 superbowl losses so I guess we have come full circle. Just weird...
Maybe I am being overly forgiving of the defense. Or maybe I'm just realistically assessing that the D got exposed by an offense that got hot at the right time against a starting caliber QB that had the perfect blend of experience without enough film to really break down his weaknesses. Maybe I would be less forgiving if that same offense did not do the exact same thing to the absolute best D in the league two weeks earlier (and also to the Falcons in sub-zero temps where the only things holding them was inefficiency in the redzone and a few too many fumbles).
As for the BB vs Brady debate, this always creeps up after every non-winning season. The truth is, both are all time greats on their own but neither would be anywhere near as successful if they were apart. Brady has been blessed to spend his whole career in a system (don't forget this is Belichick's offense too) that caters to his strengths and an atmosphere that pushes him to continually get better. BB has benefitted from an unheard of level of stability of top performance at QB.
Anyways, that's it for now. Thanks for letting me vent. I don't know if we will make it back to the SB (it is never easy), but we will certainly be right back in the thick of things next year and I would definitely not bet against it.
instead of using his speed to pick up 2 yards for the 1st easily cost us another 4. That would have been 41 points right there.
